TIMERGARA, April 4: Eight people were killed and 26 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the main bazaar of Munda in Lower Dir on Monday.

The bomber set off the explosives strapped to his body outside a motor bargain showroom.

The dead included Mohammad Akbar alias Sufi, the owner of Ali Bargain Centre, his driver and a gunman.

A police official told Dawn that Mohammad Akbar, a Jamaat-i-Islami activist, was the main target apparently because of his active role in the campaign against militants.

He led an assault by a local lashkar on January 2 this year in Samar Bagh area that left two local Taliban dead. That day militants had carried out a bomb attack when a police van was passing through the area.

Two police officials and a constable were injured.

Seven bodies were received in the Munda hospital. Fourteen of the injured were taken to the Timergara district headquarters hospital and the others were admitted to the Munda hospital. The blast left parts of the victims’ bodies scattered all over the bazaar.

AFP adds: “We have found the head of the bomber. He appears to be a teenager, a 15 to 16-year-old boy,” said Dir district police chief Saleem Marwat. “The death toll is eight as more person died of his injuries,” said Doctor Mohammad Karim at the Timergara district hospital.

“I was in a shop a few blocks away,” Mohammad Irshad, a 30-year-old labourer, told AFP.

“I saw a young boy entering the car showroom where tribal elder Malik Akbar was having tea with his relatives. Soon there was a huge blast.

“The boy disappeared in the smoke that filled the area. His body parts were later seen littered near the show room,” he said.

Local resident Israr Uddin said it took time for ambulances to arrive from nearby towns, so people used private cars to rush the injured to Timergara.